7600 Banding Problem

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
1

I have an Epson 7600 printer I bought used. It has both vertical and horizontal banding problems. It was originally purchased in 2003 by a NASA facility in Virginia. I have no maintenance information on the printer. When I received it, it had Epson pigment inks installed. I ran a nozzle test on it and it was perfect. I have since installed piezography inks to produce positives and negatives for palladium and copper plate gravure printing. I didn’t notice the banding issues until I printed a negative for making a palladium print. (I have included a positive of the palladium negative, a diagnostic nozzle test and an ink separation image. The positive and the ink separation image were printed on Pictorico transparency film. All were scanned on an Eversmart Pro flatbed scanner at 600 dpi and reduced to 300 dpi to reduce file size.)

I have performed the following maintenance procedures on the printer:
From the SelecType menu: I performed the UNI-ALL and BI-D ALL alignments. I tried the Paper Feed Adj from -1 to +1. I reduced the Suction to Low and set the Platen Gap to wide. None of this helped.

I downloaded a Field Service Manual for the 7600 and: From the Diagnostic menu I performed a BI-D adjustment and executed the CopyParam function to save the values. I purchased a tension gauge and set the paper feed tension and the carriage feed tension. I performed the +T&B alignments to set the Top, Bottom, Margin and V(length) distances for the paper feed. This helped somewhat. I have ordered dampers and a new wiper for the head. It is obvious from the Diagnostic Nozzle Test there is a problem, but I can find no instructions on how to ‘read’ the printout to analyze the problem. Any assistance or advice you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

I have the above mentioned images available to attach but cannot figure out how to do it. I could add the files to the upload section but could not figure out how to drag and drop them into the attachment section. Help please. Thanks, Cheers, Charlie

2

I’m really not sure if the x600s are capable of printing for film anymore. After many years, these printers will almost certainly micro-line due to nozzle deflection and general wear-out of the outlet holes. Film really does require zero lines and in my decade of printing on this model, almost all of them lined on papers that were gloss or semi-gloss.

W

3

Walker,
Thanks. After trying everything I can find to do, I am inclined to agree that is the problem. I’m converting my 3880 so I can use it. I guess the 7600 will make a good boat anchor ;-).
Cheers,
Charlie

4

We put ours out to pasture.

Literally. Then again, it’s vermont and we all like putting things out in the front yard . . .

5

I can close my eyes and see them standing there like sheep. I learned large format photography from Fred Picker in Putney in summers '75 and '76. Learned to print palladium from Carlos Richardson, who was on Fred’s staff, in the fall of '76 up there and have been hooked ever since.

Cheers,
Charlie